FullDive System
by ragef33
Summary: Kayaba Akihiko, the biggest person in the gaming industry, announced the release of the next VR Console, meant to take FullDive even further. The SoulGear, successor to the NerveGear. With it, several new games were scheduled for release on launch, including the re-release of the first VRMMO, Sword Art Online. But upon diving in, players found the immersion to be... too far. (AU)
1. Prologue

"I've used the last two months to build my information network, and learn all I can about our situation." The voice originating from a hooded figure was soft and carried a bit of a nasal tone to it.

"I know _that_ much," responded the boy who's back was turned to the informant. "What did you find?"

"I'm getting to that, Kiri-bou" responded the hooded person who sat atop of a small house, talking down towards the boy dressed in a black cloak. Her tone and voice revealed she was no more than a girl, probably the same age as the boy she spoke down on.

"Most of what I learned is obvious; there seems to be no conventional way to leave _this world_, unlike the old _Sword Art Online_. Also unlike the SAO, there's no level system, no party system, no skill system. I've gone to several lengths to confirm this much. Was more, when you bring up the Status Screen, there's no menu, but there is a diagram of your body, and you can look up several stats. It sort of looks more like a simulation than an actual game," she said with a sigh. "But the weirdest thing of all? After questioning everyone I could, it seems everyone logged in at the same time."

"W-what's so weird about that?" the boy asked, finally looking up at the girl who wore a wry smile.

"I mean that everyone logged in within a time frame of about 5 minutes. This makes no logical sense," She said, pushing some of her hair back as if not knowing what to do about that information. "Everyone who appeared in the Town of Beginnings appeared at the same time. Yet a large majority of the people I interrogated gave me different times they logged in at. A pair of siblings even told me how one of them didn't log in until at least an hour after the other, yet they also spawned at about the same time."

"No idea what that could mean?" the boy tilted his face to the side, asking innocently. He had a feminine look to him, but wasn't too easily mistaken for a girl thanks to his current dress-style and tone of voice.

"Nope." the girl shook her head. "Saying we were actually transported to another world would definitely explain everything, but I think that would make me crazy." She sighed before moving on. "The other thing... You were right about the NPCs."

The boy nodded in understanding as he looked around the small village. The sun beyond the walls had already set, and what illuminated the roads was the various torches set upon each house. Not only that, there were people who walked about, some receding into their homes. When they first entered this world, everyone believed that these people were nothing more than NPCs- scripted drones that walk about at the accord of a program. But that was not true. Each individual had a personality, a past, an identity unique to itself. It didn't take too long to realize this, but most still seemed to be amazed by this fact.

"We really shouldn't have the technology to create a human-like AI," the boy said, "Right?"

The girl shrugged, "Well, back in SAO- Ya know, when it was just a game- I heard rumors about some Event and Quest NPCs that seemed to have a mind of their own. But nothing on this level," she stated. "But there's more to it,"

"H-how much more?" the boy finally asked hesitantly as he saw the girl's grim face. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to pay for all this information. She hopped down from the roof of the house, and began to walk.

"Walk with me," she ordered, before she continued. "There was a library in the Town of Beginnings. Small one. But it was there. I decided to look through some books. and most of it seemed... Normal. Almost none of it seemed to be what you might find in a library in a video game. There were a few How to books, and Lore related stuff, but the vast majority were what you might find in any ordinary library. Mostly fiction. Entire novels and novel series were written up. I recognized none of them, not even the authors. There were even a few biographies detailing the lives of people in some far off kingdoms."

"Looks like someone was pretty dedicated to make the setting realistic. How's this important Argo?"

"No Kiri-bou, you don't write up several thousand novels, almost all of them being over 300 pages long, just to fit a setting." The boy she called Kiri-bou seemed to get the idea after having it explained like that, "There are a lot of RPG games where developers write up a lot of content about the lore of the world, but none of them could actually be seriously considered a full-length novel." She paused a second. "So it got me thinking. I started conversing with the residence. The NPCs. Those that were here before us. According to them, Aincrad has existed for only one year. They say that when it appeared in the sky, it abducted several villages, about 5. By this I mean, the entire village was lifted from the earth, with people inside, and planted on the first floor of this castle."

"Ooh, that seems pretty scary,"

"Yeah, you can imagine how they felt. Most actually believe that we're the same as them. And you probably noticed that when we made it to the second floor, no one was here except monsters. The only reason there are people here now, is because a few from the first floor decided to move up here for the open real estate. But even now it's pretty empty. despite the fact that it looks like someone went and built some villages, and left them untouched" She paused a moment. "So anyways, this means that the world below might exist, and isn't just a background asset like in SAO. But it seems someone else had that idea first," she finished off, giving the boy a bit of a grin. "Some group of players decided to form a guild, crafted rope, and made their way down to the ground."

"W-what? But rope was never something you could create in SAO. How?"

"Some of them knew how to craft rope in the real world," she shrugged. "You can do things like that now," she added. "So anyways, after getting down, they realized Aincrad is moving. They've been observing how it moves for a couple weeks, and it looks to be doing large circles. No, that's not right. They've done some calculating, and basically, if you were to draw the course on a map, Aincrad is doing several 'almost circles', but keeps breaking off and starting another circle in a different direction, before it can connects. They hypothesize it's following some weird path-way that's meant to cover the whole planet- oh right, and they think we're on a planet because the surface of the world is curved."

"Is that where your, 'teleported to another world' comment came from?" he asked surprised. "Damn," Kirito said after a short pause. "I thought if we could clear Aincrad maybe we could go home," He said.

"Wouldn't that be convenient. But even that could take us months or years. Still though, I was thinking of getting together a few expeditions to explore the world below. Maybe they'll find some clues on how to get back. Meanwhile you and the others in the Assault Group can try to clear Aincrad, and see what happens when you get to the Ruby Palace at the top."

"Both options seem pretty bleak at this point," the boy responded before looking up at the ceiling several hundred meters above him, with his hands tucked into his pockets. "What do you plan to do now?" He asked, taking out a few coins and counting them. He held out his hand and dropped the coins into the palm of the girl he was speaking with.

"I was thinking of scouting out a weird formation just east of here," she said.

"Easy of this town, or...?"

"East of Aincrad. You can't see it from up here because of the clouds, but apparently they saw something that looks like a city or something from lower on down. I was thinking of checking it out. Maybe I'll find some people who have more information. Or maybe they're just a land formation, and I'm wasting my time. Either way, I'll be back in a week or so, if I can make it back."

"If?"

"Well you know, I'll have to catch up to Aincrad," she said with a shrug. "And what about you, Kiri-bou? What do you intend to do?" she asked, and then gave a broad grin. "I hear you're hanging out a lot with a certain someone, ever since the First labyrinth was cleared."

"H-hey, it's nothing like that," the boy denied with his hands up as he tried to dismiss what she was insinuating. "We're just trying to clear the dungeons together, because it's not safe alone," he explained,

"Uh-huh~" the girl teased

"Well anyways, tomorrow Diavel is holding a meeting with the Assault Group. Something about where to go from here, and such. Seeing as random monsters don't drop items, the only way to get anything of worth is from chests, or to take them from some of the monsters that actually hold something. And we don't know if the weapons we bought at the shops will actually last us forever in this world."

Argo nodded, "That has been something on my mind too. If this is a fantasy world, there should be something stronger than just iron," she said, holding her hand up to show the iron claws strapped to her arm.

"Ehh- did Diavel purchase that kind of information from you?"

"Who knows~~?" she said teasingly with an extended hand, asking for money in exchange for the information.

Kirito sighed, "I'll probably find out tomorrow anyways, so I'll keep my money." The girl merely grinned and turned. She waved as she began to walk away.

"I'll be back as soon as I can. I'm leaving this morning," She told him.

Kirito as well made his to the house he claimed as his home, located in the very town he was in. As he turned, the massive tower stood only a kilometer away. It was the staircase that led to the third floor, and it was filled with monsters and twisting passage ways.

The information he received from Argo just now; how useful was it? There was a group, no, a Guild of people trying to find a way out of Aincrad, that didn't involve clearing the tower? They had to be pretty smart if they noticed that the world below was in fact a planet, and even knew how Aincrad was moving above it. Could _their_ way be the _right _way to escape to our world

* * *

><p><strong><span>Author Notes: <span>**

So that's a thing. I hope you enjoyed that at least. I don't normally write fan-fiction but figured I could try this story out to practice my writing. Anyways, hopefully I can keep to this for a while, instead of losing motivation 5 chapters in.


	2. Chapter 1

**KIRITO**

I couldn't help but yawn as I pulled myself from bed. My neck had a bit of stiffness that I easily got rid of with a stretch. I grabbed the clothes I'd been wearing for the last week or so, and slipped into it without issue. A simple shirt and pants, as well as a black coat, and a pair of boots. I grabbed the scabbard of my one-handed straight sword, and latched it onto the belt that went around my back. While before, in the real world, I wouldn't dare dress like this, I'd grown accustomed to the look, and was starting to like the color black more and more.

Normally, all of this preparation would have been over-with in a matter of seconds. IF this were the old SAO, I would have simply loaded the clothes-preset, and equipped my sword to my back. I wouldn't have felt any stiffness, or aches, and I probably wouldn't have yawned- In fact, I probably wouldn't have woken up to find myself in the old SAO anyhow. These were all things that did not exist in the old _Sword Art Online_. The version I use to play on the NerveGear, where all 100 Floors were cleared, and I leveled up at a steady pace in. But that was a different Kirito from the account I currently had. That Kirito was crafted by me after a long time to look like a perfect Fantasy hero, with a masculine face, and had reached level 56 before the announcement of the "SoulGear".

As I looked in the mirror to make sure I was at least presentable, I was once again reminded that the face I wore was identical to my real face. Feminine and delicate, to where I was often mistaken for a girl when I was with my sister in public. When I first saw that face, I was pretty distraught, but it hadn't given me too much trouble in this world. Despite my thin figure, I was able to train this body up, and could freely wield my sword about. I found that fatigue in this world was real, but I could resist it easier than in the real world. It made it easier for me to train my swordsmanship for longer hours than normal, too. I was lucky enough to at least know some of the basics to wielding a sword, due to my involvement in kendo a few years ago, and I thank my grandfather for that, even if he was overly strict. What's more, the Sword Skills from the old SAO seemed to still be present in this world. Only... they worked a bit different.

Once I was ready, I made my way out the door, and found the sun shining on my face. The meeting I told Argo about the night before was going to be held right outside the town's southern entrance, which led towards the Dungeon that connected this floor to the next. But that wasn't until later that day. Until then, I decided to meet with a group I'd become acquainted with. No, it was more accurate to say, "a single person I was acquainted with," and his group of friends.

I made my way towards the center plaza of the town, making only a few turns before connecting with the main-road, and started north towards the center of the town, which also held the town's Teleport Gate. Despite the fact that this world was so bizarrely different from SAO, things like the Teleport Gates and monsters still existed. Some merchants even had health potions to sell, that seemed to work like magic. But they said it wasn't magic, it was alchemy. That was a setting he was not aware of, in the old SAO. No magic existed on the floating castle Aincrad. The closest things to that were the potions and crystals, but the NPCs insisted it wasn't magic. No one ever mentioned anything about Alchemy though. A week ago, Argo informed me that several players have decided to learn Alchemy, seeing how monsters didn't seem to ever have such items on them, and among the residence that were here before us, the "NPCs", only a few really knew how to craft such potions. So there was a limited supply of a very valuable item.

That was a problem when we first popped up in the Town of Beginnings. Injuries didn't just heal over time without issue. There was pain, and our bodies healed very slowly, and not always properly. It was like Argo said, this seemed more like a simulation than an actual game. Health potions accelerated the process to just a few minutes, and even healed old wounds, short of scars and amputations anyways. Though, the alchemists claimed that was only because we didn't have strong enough ingredients for the potions. I considered asking Argo what sort of ingredients those were, assuming she knew, but I decided not to waste any of the limited money I had on something I couldn't use.

As I made my way to the Teleport Gate, I noticed the myriad of people that crowded the area. It was much more populated than the living area of the town, with various groups talking amongst themselves, and people teleporting in and out of the gate. I watched as a young girl stepped into the gate, and called out the name of a town on the first floor; as she finished her declaration, her body and clothes began to glow slightly. What happened next occurred in the span of a single second, but her body began to break apart, as if turning into glass and dust. The shards and grains however were completely transparent. What seemed to be her body would swirl in the air she stood at, before being pulled to the center of the teleport gate, as if water being sucked into a drain. Anyone watching from the gate she would appear at would likely see various white grains of light pool out of a Teleport Gate, as they clumped together, creating many glass-like shards before forming together, and as each connection was made the shards would gain color. Of course, this process occurred in the same amount of time it took for her to disappear. And from her point of view, she would likely just see flashes of light and color, before her orientation returned just 2 seconds later.

I scratched my cheek as I realized I had no idea how long it would be before the man I was waiting on would show up. I hadn't exactly scheduled a meeting with him or anything. I just learned recently that he joined the clearing effort, along with his half-dozen friends or so. I also knew that he didn't live in this town, and thus would need to use a Teleport Gate to arrive here. But I hadn't spoken with him since launch day, so I doubted he even knew I would be waiting. For a moment I considered meeting up with the partner I'd chosen to party with, and go out to practice my sword fighting, but as I considered the idea, another batch of figures appeared through the gate. Most were unfamiliar; people who appeared to be "Players", but I don't believe I'd ever met them. All except for one of them anyways.

Klein. A guy I met on the first day this "game" started, and we were all plunged into this unknown world. After I got over my shock at the photo-realism of the world, I pushed passed the quickly growing crowd, and began to spend the initial money I started off with to buy a single-handed straight sword, the same class of weapon I'd used before. At the time it hadn't occurred to me that there wasn't even a character creation phase; I just naturally assumed that my shounen-esque avatar from the old SAO was ported over.

But as I purchased a basic sword from what I thought was an NPC trying to stay in character, I was approached by Klein. At the time, I stopped and looked at him, trying to make out what exactly it was that he was going for with that kind of avatar design. He looked a bit gruff, maybe something like a warrior or a bandit. That was what I figured anyways. The guy admitted to being a newb to VR, and asked for a bit of help. Said I looked like I knew what I was doing. I really couldn't just turn him down though. I told him to buy a weapon (he picked a sort of curved sword that I think was called a scimitar) and decided to show him how to use Sword Skills.

There was a bit of an unfortunate accident though, and that sort of led to something of an acquaintanceship. But the incident also led us to realizing that we weren't in some regular old VRMMO.

"Hey... Klein," I called out hesitantly, making my presence known to the bunch behind him.

He looked in my direction, giving a look that showed he didn't expect anyone to be waiting on him. "Oi! Kirito!" He said in his usual expressive way. "Don't tell me you were waiting for me or something," He said with a grin. "Look at you, trying to look cool in that get-up," he said.

"H-hey! I'm not trying to look cool or anything," I argued back at his teasing, "I just happen to like it." Besides, this was one of the various items that were in the "Treasure Room" that opened up after killing the first floor boss. The Treasure Room seemed to be a replacement for "item drops" that you normally see in MMOs. There was a bit of in-fighting when we arrived at the room, and found the mountains of items and such. Eventually the agreement was to split the Cor evenly, and distribute whatever items there were among those who needed them. It didn't seem like anyone cared much for a simple black cloak, so I took it, as well as a few health potions. I considered getting an antidote potion, but I figured those were generally useless at the current stage of Aincrad.

Klein's friends, some of his _guild_ members seemed to be a bit confused, clearly not knowing who I was. But that was fine, I didn't want to get too social with people, and it seemed that Klein at least understood that. "So how'd you know we'd be coming?" the swordsman finally asked.

"I heard from someone you were joining the assault group, and I decided to greet you."

"Ah, well it's great to see you again, and know you're alive," He said, and added, "My group's going to be heading to the meeting later today, but right now we're planning on taking on some of the local monsters. Wanna join us for some practice? Could use someone who knows the area."

"Ah, I'd love to, but.. I'm already going out with someone else," Why did this feel like I was being asked out on a date?

"Then invite her too," Klein said with a smirk.

I paused for a few seconds- before replying "I'll check with them to see if it's ok, I guess." I probably should have said I was with a group or something. But wait, how did-

"How did you know his partner was a _her_?" came a soft voice that emerged from the opposite side of Klein's group.

Klein of course turned his head around (along with his group of friends) to spot the source of that question. There stood a thin figure in a brown cloak that covered most of their body, and hid most identifying features, with the exception of a lock of chestnut hair that fell out of the hood that covered the person's head. Klein took two long steps towards the figure, and gave something of a slight bow.

"You must be her! I'm Klein, nice to meet you," He said with a hand out.

She returned the gesture, and shook his hand. "Asuna," she said simply, before pulling the hood back, and looking at the gruff Swordsman, before asking once more, "So where did you hear about me?" She asked with a questioning look as she tilted her head.

Klein seemed to be noticeably hit, and reacted to the cute girl in front of him as she asked a question in the same voice as before. "I-i was just checking up on Kirito through an info-broker, when they mentioned a partner! And I wanted to know what kinda person you were so I asked about you too, and they said you were a girl and stuff," was what I _think_ he tried to say, but it seemed to come out very rushed, and some of it didn't come out coherently.

"Oh, an info broker? Like that Rat person Kirito talks to regularly?" she asked, but it was too late- Klein had already slipped away from this conversation, to my side. His arm slinked around my shoulder, and he held a fist to my chest.

"Kirito, how'd you get a girl like that to party with you, man?"

"Ah," I hesitated, not really sure of the answer myself. I waved it off with a shrug though, and responded "Oh you know... It happens."

I heard a bit of a laugh, but didn't take note of it. But then Asuna's voice chimed in. "About your offer," she said. "I wouldn't mind tagging along. It's nice to have more back-up, in case this one screws up," she said with a half smile, pointing a thumb over at me. I was about to respond with feigned offense, but Klein pulled my neck, twisting us around, and turning us towards on of the main roads that led to the tower labyrinth of this floor.

"Then lets go!" He shouted with an enthusiastic high in his voice.

I manged to pull away from his grip with a tug, and patted my coat a bit, "Ok ok, let's go," I said with faux annoyance. "Maybe we could scout some of the lower floors of the dungeon for a couple hours, as a warm-up?" I suggested, as I already began my walk.

"Sounds good!" Klein said, and it seemed his friends didn't have any complaints about that idea. I didn't exactly intend to start a "party" with them, but some new company couldn't hurt.

As I peeked back towards Klein, I saw him speak some words to Asuna, the rapier wielding warrior that I'd become partners with after the first floor boss. She nodded with a smile, and I could have sworn I saw her face redden as she pulled her hood back over her face, and followed behind the group of guys, all heading to fight grotesque monsters of this world in attempt to better their ability to survive in this world.

I wondered what the two said, but told myself I didn't need to know, and looked forward.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Author Notes:<strong>

I want to start out by explaining something I don't think I'm "good enough" as a writer to fully explain within the story itself, that I forgot to explain in the Author Notes of the prologue. I've already brought up that there was an "SAO" before. Basically in this AU, Kayaba released the NerveGear and then SAO at the same times in the canon timeline. But he didn't go all god-complex yet by that point. Instead he let the game play out naturally, and had various expansions added to the game. Effectively, the lifespan of the NerveGear lasted for about 6 years, with several VR games being released, many of them by Argus. This also means that all character's times of birth have been shifted 6 years, to fit this new timeline. Thus, Kirito is still 14 by the year 2028. He didn't play SAO from the beginning, but joined it about a year ago, before this current "game" was released.

That said, this chapter came out much later than I initially planned (not that I expected to ever release it given my laziness). I do have some plot points planned out, though it's pretty vague at the moment, and I haven't bothered to straighten anything out properly, so bare with me for a while (Please?)


End file.
